Start: 5:45 AM - Ferron Point (Two miles north of Rockport, MI)
Finish 2:45 PM - Forty Mile Point (Seven miles north of Rogers City, MI)
Time: 9:00 hours
Daily dist: 31 miles
Total dist: 4600+
Companions: None
Weather: W and SW winds 10mph clear skies and 80’s
Notes: Some of the most georgous shore I've seen so far... anywhere
Our first stop was out to the limestone quarry to which Rogers City owes its existence. Tom warned me that it was a very big hole but, nothing aside from a comparison to the Grand Canyon could have prepared me for the enormity of the gap in the earth’s crust that man and machinery have created. It was huge, miles across, and quite deep. Monster size dump trucks zoomed back and forth across the bottom looking like Tonka trucks compared to the barren hole itself. In the distance we could see the piles of crushed stone and towers at the loading port that I had paddled by on my approach to town earlier in the day.
Now we’re watching the winds predicted for tomorrow (only slightly better) to see if it will be worth getting back on the lake or just waiting until Friday when NOAA weather is predicting what they call “nearly ideal boating conditions.” That sounds good to me.